Novel side-chain-type sulfonated poly(arylene ether ketone) with pendant sulfoalkyl groups for direct methanol fuel cells

✍ Scribed by Yang Zhang; Ying Wan; Chengji Zhao; Ke Shao; Gang Zhang; Hongtao Li; Haidan Lin; Hui Na

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 560 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0032-3861
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2009.07.036

✦ Synopsis

Novel side-chain-type sulfonated poly(arylene ether ketone) with pendant sulfoalkyl groups (SPAEK-xx) were synthesized by post-sulfonation method. Their structures were confirmed by FT-IR and NMR spectra. The all obtained membranes had excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties. The sidechain-type SPAEK films showed good dimensional stability, and their water uptake and swelling ratio were lower than those of the main-chain-type SPAEK with similar ion exchange capacity (IEC) value. It should be noted that the most highly sulfonated copolymer, SPAEK-100 (DS ¼ 1.0) with IEC of 1.54 meq./g, showed proton conductivity of 0.083 S/cm and water swelling ratio of only 9.74% at 80 C. Moreover, the methanol permeability of SPAEK-100 membrane was 3.95 Â 10 À7 cm 2 /s, which was much lower than 23.80 Â 10 À7 cm 2 /s of Nafion 117.